Behind Blue Glass Released To The World TODAY!

AVAILABLE HERE (ENGLISH WITH SPANISH SUBTITLES)

Spanish language article here!

"For years some of the largest Great White sharks ever landed, were caught off the coast of Mallorca, sometimes less than one hundred metres from popular tourist beaches. These captures abruptly stopped after the second largest White Shark ever caught was brought back to the dock by fisherman, Xisco Perez. The year was 1976, the year Steven Spielberg's JAWS was released in Spain.

The story has remained largely untold outside of Mallorca until now, David Diley explores why, along the way taking seven unwitting volunteers into the deep, to show how important sharks really are, how shark encounters are actually a positive thing and show the world what is truly at risk.

This was the first film I ever made and features content never before seen on TV, including eyewitness accounts from the people who were there. Behind Blue Glass premiered to a packed room in Portals, Mallorca, in May 2011, after its DVD release earlier that year."

Two years ago, whilst working towards getting "Of Shark and Man" funded, I figured, rather later than I should have in all honesty, that in order to help me get said funding, I should really actually go and try my hand at making a film!

I'd wanted to do a comprehensive piece about Mallorca's Great White Sharks for years, since my first visit to the island in my early teens and thanks to an email out of the blue from a certain Mr Brad Robertson, asking my advice on his Shark Diver course, after having stumbled across this blog, the wheels were set in motion for the start of a pretty amazing journey!

I'm not going to tell the whole story again, this blog post will tell you everything you need to know as a back story...

So, here's the big news...As of today, you, yes YOU, can now see Behind Blue Glass, in its entirety, in full HD, thanks to Vimeo's new "On Demand" feature which, to be frank, looks to be quite brilliant!

Behind Blue Glass was released on DVD only last year, available to buy direct from Palma Aquarium, but I'd been looking around for ages for a place where I could offer a digital download in return for a small fee but everywhere seemed to charge through the nose, take large cuts of sales and make it overly difficult to just get the thing out there.

I've been waiting for On Demand to be launched since I first heard of it last year. Available only to Vimeo Pro members, On Demand actually makes the whole process easy to do. You upload your film, give them your paypal account details and launch your film. They take 10% and that's it. It's so simple! All you need to do is visit the page click "Watch Now" put in your card details and you get to stream the film from Vimeo on any device, anywhere, for as long as I am a Vimeo Pro member so basically, years and years. You know that the majority of your money goes to the Film-Maker which is where the majority of your money should go but often doesn't in more traditional distribution agreements.

The film is very reasonably priced at $5.99 which is £3.95, or €4.58 at the current rate of exchange, in fact, it's under-priced to be honest, for 37 minutes of film, you're practically stealing it from me ;) After I have covered my own costs, a percentage of each sale will go towards Asociacion Ondine and the ongoing Mallorquin conservation projects we are running, currently at our own expense.

So, why should you pay your hard earned money to see this film? Firstly, it's almost certainly the most in-depth documentary about Mallorca's Great White Sharks ever made, certainly the most detailed English language film on the subject, on the planet.You also don't know this story, it's a brilliant story and you are absolutely guaranteed to learn something new.

Having watched the film again last night for the first time in a while, the amount of content and factual information is pretty staggering. There is a wealth of info packed into less than 40 minutes, probably more than you would find in other, shall we say, "bigger budget" and more "professional" productions and not just that, the whole thing comes from nothing more than just wanting to make something fun, a little bit different and to tell a great story. There's no cynical attempt to try and sell you things, it's just a guy who really loves sharks, making an interesting film to hopefully appeal to other people who really love sharks!

Behind Blue Glass will always be very special to me because it was an amazing experience to make it and because of everything that has followed it. This was my first ever attempt at making a film, not my first film after film school, not my first paid job, I'd bypassed all of that, this was the first time I had ever attempted to produce, direct, present and shoot a film...Ever. Only eight months prior, I was working as a Recruitment Consultant with my only experience being filming sharks on diving holidays and making videos of myself and my friends acting like idiots whilst drunk on New Year's Eve!

Of the four man crew (well, three men, one woman) only Liam had any experience, this was literally four mates, three of whom  had no idea what they were doing, trying to complete an enormously complex and ambitious project, in fact looking back, the goals I set were completely unreasonable, naive, way too ambitious and complex but somehow, we managed to pull it off through sheer bloody mindedness and determination.

We absolutely ran ourselves into the ground on this film, the average shoot day lasted 14 hours, one day on pre-production, Brad, Bea and I started at 3am and didn't finish until 1am the following day with no breaks. Also nobody really got paid, most of you reading this will be paid more today, sitting at your desk than the people involved in this film got for three weeks of solid grind. It was incredibly hard work but one of the happiest times of my life.

 

OK, let's be honest, it's far from perfect, it's rough and ready, there are things I would do very differently now, knowing what I know but you know what, who cares? I really don't think that matters because taking into account what we had to go through, I still look at this film as a pretty incredible achievement. That's not me blowing my own trumpet, that's testament to everybody who rolled up their sleeves and got stuck in to help us make it. Brad and Bea almost killed themselves to make this happen with their sheer effort and passion, Debora, Roman, Manon and the guys at Palma Aquarium were an amazing help. Jaime Ros, Soller Museum, Gabriel Morey, all the volunteers, Xisco Perez, the list of people who gave their time and effort, free of charge to help get this made is huge and without them, it wouldn't be what it is.

Huge thanks also to Richard Theiss and Lawrence Groth for the additional footage which again, they contributed for free.

So for the imperfections, the fact that the sound department was either Bea or local kids, Brad and Bea being handed cameras and expected to do a crash course in cinematography whilst actually shooting segments on the spot, the obligatory "things not working properly at the worst possible time," the fact I had to wear sunnies through most shots due to an eye problem and the often improvisational approach to film-making, I am incredibly fond of this film because not only is it way better than anyone's first film should be, it has a heart and soul at its core of people just wanting to do something good and start something.

And start something it did. Behind Blue Glass was the big first shove behind the marine conservation projects now being rolled out by Brad and Bea in Mallorca, Brad is now running a full time Conservation NGO, people suddenly started taking an interest in marine conservation, including the media, it directly led to "A Ray of Light," one of the headlining films in this year's Beneath The Waves Film Festival and also taught me more in three weeks on how to shoot films than any film school could, meaning it helped enormously in the making of "Of Shark and Man." It's fascinating to me to see the enormous progression and growth from film to film and Behind Blue Glass has a lot of the credit for that.

Anyway, that's enough from me, are you sold yet? If you're interested in sharks and that still doesn't encourage you to part with the cost of a packet of fags to see this film, then you're probably not actually that interested in sharks...

Buy Behind Blue Glass HERE

Edit: Muchas gracias Patric!

Behind Blue Glass - Finished!

Great news about Behind Blue Glass, after a total of approximately one thousand man hours work, the film is now finished! A master DVD is ready and the full HD 1080p version is exporting as we speak, twenty hours in, only fourteen more hours to go!

From day one, this was a big task, not only was it my first ever attempt at making a film having no experience of doing so before, the opportunity also happened to arise at the sharp end of the major preparations for my first feature film in Fiji, production of which begins in only one week and six days. Behind Blue Glass was also made on what can be described as a "micro budget," a four man crew, three of whom had pretty much zero experience and has been edited solely by myself on a £500 laptop which has made some of the post production process a very slow, laborious experience.



With all that in mind however, I am more than confident in saying that the quality of the end result, far belies the limitations in regards to resources, it looks great!

As for the content, I am more than happy, the film features interviews with Xisco Perez and Sr. M Ferrer, two men with first hand experience of Mallorca's Great White Sharks, Gabriel Morey, Marine Biologist, Fisheries and Conservation Minister and member of the IUCN and Brad Robertson of Ondine Escape. Behind Blue Glass also stars some brilliant members of the pubic, from the ages of 16-62 who get confronted with the opportunity of a lifetime but how do they react? Of course, the film also features underwater footage of the other stars of the show, the sharks themselves!

 

The film clocks in at just over thirty eight minutes and in keeping with the highly independent "DIY" approach, the film's original music comes entirely from unsigned, underground artists and bands, including Lifescreen, Ten, Back Page First and the one and only Rock behemoth that is Nerve Engine.

The film was shot entirely on Canon 7D and 5Dmkii with a little help from a small palmcorder and the quality of footage is outstanding. The premiere will be held in Mallorca at Palma Aqauarium, most likely at the end of August and looks set to be a pretty fancy affair. After the premiere, you will of course, be able to see the film itself. I am looking into the best ways to do this and it looks like the most likely scenario would be to make it available on two formats, a DVD with additional extras like behind the scenes stuff, the trailer and production stills and also as a HD digital download. 

Keep your eyes peeled for updates, the best way to do that is of course, to go here, scroll to below the trailer and join the mailing list. In the event I can make special offers and discounts on this and future films, they will be for the mailing list members only, maybe something worth looking into?

Spread the word, it's a great little film if I do say so myself and some very dedicated people put a hell of a lot of effort into helping me make this, with no gain for themselves, purely because they believe in the message. Because I went over to Mallorca to shoot this film and because of the press coverage I got whilst there, the issue of shark conservation is now being discussed in the national media and in the coming weeks Palma Aquarium will be rolling out an anti-shark finning campaign across Mallorca and hopefully Spain as well. This wasn't achieved by an NGO or expensive marketing campaign, it was achieved by a small handful of people who believed enough that we could make it happen which just goes to show, it is possible for ordinary people to change things for the better.

Coming soon: News on what to expect whilst I am in Fiji!

www.officetoocean.com

Behind Blue Glass - More Details!

With all the excitement and ever increasing workload of the upcoming production in Fiji, it might have been forgotten that I am actually doing post-production on my first ever film, "Behind Blue Glass," well you may have forgotten, I certainly haven't!

I've already mentioned what an incredibly enjoyable experience it was shooting this film but now is the time to fill you in on what to expect and hopefully you'll be chomping at the bit to spend approximately twenty minutes of your life, with a cup of tea and a plate of biscuits, actually watching it! "Behind Blue Glass" is a short film, based in Mallorca and for which I came up with the idea in late February and to the credit of Brad and Bea at Ondine Escape and the guys at Palma Aquarium only took three weeks or so to get the required funding to actually go and make it.

The film is centred around two main aspects, telling the story of Mallorca's history with sharks, in particular, the Great White and also showing that sharks can have a life changing, positive effect on ordinary people.

The Mallorquin relationship with sharks and its story is one which is very much untold, particularly for a non-Spanish audience, google it and see how little there is online! Undeterred and with a decades old fascination with sharks in this part of the world, I was determined to go and delve deeper into it and did so with no shortage of success! For example, did you know where the second largest, recorded, Great White Shark ever caught was taken? Yep, Mallorca, less than one hundred metres from shore in a popular tourist resort. Surprising yes? I doubt you will have heard the story about this before so who better to tell it than the man who caught it, Xisco Perez? My thoughts exactly so look no further than this film as he was kind enough to let me talk to him about it on camera.

Xisco is a fantastic bloke and gave up over an hour of his time to spend with me talking about what happened, by the boat upon which the shark was caught and was ably translated by another fantastic Mallorquin and new friend, Jaime Ros.

The last surviving set of Great White jaws in Mallorca? Check, eyewitness reports from the people who were there and saw these huge sharks in the flesh? Check, input from the people who know more about Mallorquin Great Whites than anybody? Check, it's all in there for you!

Passionate, knowledgeable and incredibly helpful people were certainly not in short supply, another of these people, IUCN member and fisheries and conservation minister for the Balearics, Gabriel Morey, was kind enough to not only talk to me on camera about the state of Balearic and Mediterranean shark populations, he also took us diving at the El Toro marine reserve to get some footage of Mallorca under the waves.

Alongside the conservational and educational aspect of the film we have a little bit of inspiration as well in the form of a group of plucky volunteers, young and old and all shapes and sizes who agreed to participate in a "conservation project" but didn't know exactly what I had in store for them, they got a bit of a shock to say the least but their reactions are priceless and illustrate my point about people and sharks better than any words. Every one of them was fantastic and an inspiration to me and to see them now spreading a positive message about sharks is hugely rewarding.

So what was intended to be a ten minute piece about people meeting sharks, shot on a minuscule, shoestring budget has turned into something so much more, Liam aside, this was the first time any of the crew, myself included, had attempted to make a film, staying true to my word of involving talented, enthusiastic people in everything I do, we even got a couple of the volunteers involved in actually making the film itself getting the kind of hands on experience they may not normally get.

So what is the result? Most importantly, a film with heart, no pretension, just enthusiastic people with a love for and deep knowledge of sharks, combined with an everyman approach and an awful lot of smiles! Sound good? Keep an eye out, I am currently editing at the moment and some of the footage looks superb and I am very happy with the way things are going, hopefully it will all be completed by the end of this month with a premiere to come at Palma Aquarium and after which, you lot can get to have a look and make your own minds up.

This film is a celebration of sharks, of people and of Mallorca, one of my favourite places on earth and to who's people I owe huge gratitude. It's not a mini version of the film in Fiji as it differs in several areas, it is less "cinematic" with more of a "documentary" feel but it is no less, very "me." I'll leave it up to you guys to decide what you think of it but I'm confident you'll love it!

"Behind Blue Glass" - Coming soon!